Day 23 - And we're STILL there...
No traps... With Yuna to direct me I dig about in the piles and come up with magic leather armour; a buckler; masterwork rapier (not magic but nice); some screwed up parchment - I'll check that later; mithral shirt; rapier; large steel shield (not magic but we can probably sell it); a breast-plate (very "busty"); and a great axe (not as good as Rumbles').
In the next pile is studded leather armour and some non-magical weaponry - a masterwork battle axe, masterwork hand axe; masterwork mighty composite longbow with a quiver of 20 arrows (try saying that three times quickly); a symbol of Lolth; some elfin chain mail; another large steel shield; some sort of magic cloak and a masterwork dagger.
I pass the parchments to Damir... he smooths them out - they're portraits of other party members... the rest of the set I found in my gear way back when. We stuff everything into Damir's bag of holding.... Norton grabs the masterwork hand axe... just for the look of it I think.
Still no sign of our wayward monk so we retrace our steps and look for him - we're almost back at where we started (the room with the burning webs) before we find him. He's looking fairly battered but doesn't want to leave till he's looted those bodies he killed - ya gotta love his persistence.
He dives on the dead with a passion scarcely diminished by the realisation that he can't detect magic... it slows him down a bit but doesn't stop him.
He strips the bodies and piles up a rapier, a crossbow, a wand, an amulet, a few more potions (all magic) and a small bag of diamond dust on one. A mithral shirt and mithral shield, rapier, two javelins and two potions from the others. Damir searches the bedding and finds nothing. He comes back to where Norton, Yuna and I - I was trying to enjoy a nice cup of tea but he badgered me until I agree to go with him to search the room with the dead drow in it - what fun!
Meanwhile Norton and Yuna were minding their own business when Whoomph! A Dispel Magic spell... It dispels the overLand flight Yuna cast but only on Norton and herself... a drow appears in the doorway at the same time as a beam slices the air beside Norton and a second drow appears pointing a wand.
Yuna chucks a fireball at one and Norton flame-strikes the other. The drow both bolt. Yuna and Norton race after them - and spot one who's stopped to swig a potion - Yuna fireballs it - one dead!
They get back to the cavern just in time to meet Banipal who now wants Yuna to trudge down the corridor and survey his pile of looted goods.
"Bring it here!" she says. He does and she identifies it for him.
She tells him the diamond dust is cursed (she's got that sort of sense of humour), but he keeps it anyway. All these drow are wearing tabards bearing the crest of Lolth... Surprise! Surprise!
A thump from the corridor indicates the gaseous form potion has worn off and Banipal springs to loot that body too - yet another mithral shirt (I've said it before but... drow have NO wardrobe sense).
There's an insignia - probably some drow house crest - a scroll; a wand and yet another Lolth holy symbol - we'll have the whole set soon...
Having satisfied the baser instincts of our monkish comrade, we head off. Our brave brave monk is at the front, detecting traps in his inimicable fashion; Rumbles follows about thirty feet behind (apparently he's worked out the radius of a fireball).
Next comes Damir with me following him, Yuna following me and Norton at the rear. Out of nowhere four arrows fly at Banipal, they all miss (of course) and he races to the corner where the arrows came from - straight into oncoming fire and whacks one of the drow with a stunning fist - it drops.
I fly toward the fray, just missing the large spider on the roof - I yell a warning and see Damir draw his bow.
"Don't even think about it!" I shout at him.
"If you fire that I'll come right back and stab you."
Rumbles leaps forward with his axe - he's been looking for something to hit for a while now. Damir - sensibly heeds my warning and takes out his sword. Yuna magic missiles the spider from where she stands... it's not looking well despite the fact that it's undead (I think!) there's just gaping holes where its eyes should be.
The other drow stupidly takes another shot at Banipal - they're SO stupid - it misses! Banipal flails into the one he'd stunned and beats it silly. I keep flying and land behind the other one.
The spider takes a swipe at Damir and misses - it's not very fast! Norton's made his way up and Rebukes it - I don't know what he said but it scarpers... Damir and Rumbles have a hit as it flees and it drops to the floor, withered and desiccated.
Rumbles, fired with enthusiasm, charges the length of the corridor and slams into the drow Banipal was thumping - killing it! The other turns to flee and I have a hit at him on the way past. I slice a piece out of him and chase him down the corridor; he races into a cavern with a huge hole in the middle and leaps in.
Rumbles doesn't stop at the hole, he just flies straight down. I stop at the brink and peer over but Banipal follows Rumbles straight in...
Damir followed by Norton and Yuna arrive shortly after and we watch - it's dark down there. What we can see of the slope is too steep to walk down and drops about twenty feet into darkness - good thing Rumbles has dark-vision - before straightening into a corridor...
Rumbles catches the drow and slices it in two just as Banipal arrives with a lantern and ruins his dark vision.
Meanwhile, I search the cavern above, the section we came in through seems to have been sealed and only recently broken down - the cavern itself looks fairly well used and a path has been cleared between the broken wall and the hole. Just as I finish Rumbles clambers out of the hole.
"Got 'im!" he growls.
True to form, Banipal stayed to search the bodies of the dead... some things never change. He finds a mithral shirt (which is magic); a buckler, a rapier, a masterwork dagger, a masterwork hand-crossbow with twenty bolts, a cloak (again magic) and four potions (only three of which are magic - spider climb; jump and cure light wounds).
Finished with his looting, he climbs back up, across the cavern past the rest of us and back to the failed 'ambush' was to search the dead up there (never miss an opportunity).
He nets a mithral breast-plate; a masterwork glave; a short sword, a light crossbow with twenty bolts and two potions (one of which is bull strength). There's another mithral shirt (magic); a short sword; a masterwork mighty composite bow and twenty five arrows (the arrows are magic but the bow isn't - go figure!); a cloak (magical of course); and two potions (spider climb and another that isn't magic).
I check the potions that aren't magic and sure enough they're poisons. Having searched all the orifices, our noble (?) monk gives us the go ahead and together we head down the hole.
As Norton said, "It's the biggest unexplored place we haven't been..."
We follow the corridor, which goes only a short way, before abruptly becoming another hole with a stone wall behind it... We stop.
"That walls not right" growls Norton...moving up to the front.
I tap around the area - sounds solid enough...
Bored (as easily as he is), Banipal peers down the hole, pauses merely a moment, then dives in... he finds himself in a dark room, three figures are barely visible in the gloom, they stand around a table directly under the hole.
Fortunately, Damir is right behind him. One of the creatures advances... errrr! It looks like a flayed elf and leaves a bloody trail as it moves.
Sensibly, they fly straight back out - how unusual.
"Look what we found!" shouts Damir, flying up to the ceiling.
I move out of the confined space between the hole and the wall and away down the corridor. As I clear the hole, I catch a glimpse of the bloody creature coming through.
"How many of those are there?" I yell, not stoping.
"Just one," Banpial replies cheerfully.
"But there's three drow down still down there!"
Norton casts a flame strike straight down the hole, it seems to have done some damage - Norton's looking pleased. He follows it with a couple of crossbow bolts magiced with 'cold' damage - that should piss it off.
Rumbles shoulders in with his long bow and fires a shot or two straight into it. The creature looks straight up at Damir and... spits???
YUK... was that blood??
It's a damn long shot and it misses him. Looking for a place to boil the kettle, Yuna throws a fire ball down the hole - any excuse will do... The backwash misses Rumbles and Banipal (der!), but gets Norton... oops!
The monk leaps forward and hurls a javelin of lightening at whatever's left alive in the hole.
Damir tries three of his handy dandy new magic arrows... he has NO idea what they do (with my luck they'll be arrows of assassin seeking). He flies into the room.
"Three live drow!" comes Damirs voice from down in the hole.
Norton goes down too, from here, I can't tell whether he fell or was pushed (the eternal question).
"Whoo-hoo, things to kill!" Rumbles yells leaping into the hole, drawing his Great Axe as doe.
Norton hurls another flame strike.
A drow manages to stick Rumbles with a few arrows - this doesn't make him happy. Fortunately having the constitution of a half-orc he doesn't succumb to the sleep poison.
Just as I was thinking that, from where I stand, it's looking rather a tame sort of fight, a swirling storm of ice flies up out of the hole - ice storm maybe... I hate the cold!
Hhhhmmm... flashes of light... lightning bolts??? I wonder whether I should go and see what's happening.
Damir, still blinded by flying ice, fires arrows into where he thinks his opponent might be and the canny bastard hits! He's probably pretending to aim at me.
The ice storm stops as suddenly as it began only to be replaced by magic misiles - all aimed at Rumbles. In hindsight that may have been a bad idea as Rumbles chops the drow spell caster to pieces in retaliation.
Norton throws a Fireball into the fray - he's trying for the spell caster but hits the fighter instead - at least it's one of 'theirs'.
An enormous spider - invisible until now - drops down behind the dwarf but Banipal, from his vantage spot on the rim of the hole, sees it - leaps on it - and stuns it.
The spell caster races to another hole off to one side and leaps in. Damir's after him trying to bring him down with flaming arrows, he hits but doesn't stop him.
Norton realising the spider is undead, rebukes it - it lies there shivering.
Rumbles whallops his drow and kills it dead as a drow, as the saying goes. He then turns to the crevasse the last drow leaped into - thick strands of web hang down into the darkness.
Back to The Inn of the Far Shore.
